The Claimant made a speculative application for a job at HSBC in June 2018. She had worked at Barclays previously and had brought claims against them in the ET. Her application was not successful after HSBC had received negative feedback from Barclays. The Claimant made claims against HSBC but not until 2020, way beyond the 3 month time limit. Her reason for this late claim was because she only became aware of the facts on which she based her claim as a result of receiving further material in the period from June to October 2020. The ET struck out her claims, saying that the late disclosure did not change what she knew in 2018. The EAT allowed her appeal, concluding that the information she received in 2020 changed her knowledge about potential unlawful action within HSBC as opposed to action taken by Barclays, and which was directly relevant to her claims against HSBC. HSBC appealed to the Court of Appeal against the EAT decision.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal. The essential error, was that the ET judge had failed to make findings which explained the basis on which he concluded that the Claimant knew in July 2018 "the essential elements" of her claim against HSBC and/or that he proceeded on the basis that if she knew enough to bring proceedings against Barclays then it followed that she also knew enough to bring them against HSBC. On the evidence and information before them, however, the EAT were not in a position to go so far as to characterise the ET's reasoning as "perverse".